New DU President Says Volunteers are Key

MEMPHIS, Tenn., May 25, 2005 – Ducks Unlimited (DU) newly elected President Jim Hulbert says recruiting new volunteers is the organization’s main goal as he begins his two-year term. Hulbert, 64, of Longview, Wash., was elected president of the nearly 700,000- member wetlands conservation organization in Orlando, Fla., during its annual convention, May 18-21. President of Ducks Unlimited is the highest-ranking volunteer position within the organization.

Ducks Unlimited’s newly elected President, Jim Hulbert, says recruiting new volunteers is the organization’s main goal.

“My focus over the next two years is not changing, and it is simple,” Hulbert said in his first speech as DU’s president. “Recruit new volunteers.”

Ducks Unlimited, the leading wetlands and waterfowl conservation group in North America, presently has 32,000 volunteers throughout the United States. These volunteers raise millions of dollars at nearly 4,500 annual DU auction events nationwide. This money is the basis for much of DU’s wetlands restoration and protection work that benefits waterfowl, other wildlife and people. On average, DU can leverage six additional dollars for every unrestricted dollar earned from a DU event.

That money goes to protect or restore key duck habitat throughout North America and particularly critical duck breeding grounds in the Prairie Pothole region of the United States and Canada, the world’s duck factory. There’s a direct relationship between how many volunteers DU has and how much money it raises through its event system. More volunteers means more funds raised and more success saving duck habitat.

“That’s why my emphasis during the next two years will be volunteer recruitment and retention nationwide,” Hulbert said.

Hulbert, an ophthalmologist, succeeds John Tomke of Carmel, Ind., who was DU’s president from 2002-2005. Tomke now takes over as the organization’s chairman of the board.

Hulbert believes there’s nothing better that a duck hunter or wetlands conservationist can do right now than become a DU volunteer. He refers to it as a “noble cause.”

“Just being a volunteer means that you’ve placed something as more important than yourself – a cause that you’re willing to give of your time, money and sweat to effect change and make a difference,” he said.

Wetlands provide a home for ducks and more than 900 other wildlife species. They also benefit people by helping purify our drinking water and reducing the devastating impacts of floods by trapping and holding floodwaters.

With more than a million supporters, Ducks Unlimited is the world’s largest and most effective wetland and waterfowl conservation organization. The United States alone has lost more than half of its original wetlands − nature’s most productive ecosystem − and continues to lose more than 100,000 wetland acres each year.

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